Narrative Medicine

Story is the theme central to all of our humanistic disciplines. This is a theme that tethers the disciplines to the heart of medicine as it is actually experienced by patients who perceive themselves to be healthy as well as the ill, the suffering, and the dying, along with those who care for them. The Narrative Medicine Initiative uses stories (from literature, visual media, graphic arts, and elsewhere) to introduce students to the principles of the close-reading of texts that present worlds different from their own, and to apply the imaginative growth these texts engender to clinical situations they will see every day in the medical setting.

Keepers of the House

A collaborative project, Keepers of the House, is under way with the Health Humanities Lab of the Franklin Humanities Institute. It examines the views of environmental services staff in Duke hospital about their perceptions of health care, the patient experience, and their relationships with patients.